Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/538

Decoration. 511 rosettes, as well as the principal compartment, are enframed in narrow bands, yellow and blue, with red and black hatchings. The whole formed a dado around the room.' The decorator's choice doubtless was determined by the materials constituting this section of the wall. The style of building of that period was largely carried on with crude brick ; and this as a rule was separated from the humid ground by a stone foundation, which received a special polychrome ornamentation. The habit once formed was retained, although no longer wanted for constructive reasons. Thus, at Pompeii, the walls generally are homo- geneous throughout, yet most of them have a painted dado. Fen. aoS.^Thern. Coloured stucco fn^ment. Actuiil siw. Above it, the decoration of more than one room must have been monochrome. Among the plastered fragments strewing the floors of the various apartments at Tiryns, many were painted with one colour only, put in flat ; yellow, red, or blue without figures. Elaborate and complicated patterns were kept for reception- rooms, where the artist was at liberty to indulge his fancy as he pleased. Art invariably begins with what may be termed the "stuffing" system. At this stage it looks upon blanks as lapses which are a reproach to its industry, eye-sores that must be put out of sight by all the means at its command, rectangles, circular forms, dots, and the like. It is probable that in dealing with great surfaces such as those of the megarons, the artist provided • ScHLiEMANN, Tiryns. Tsoundas noticed the same arrangement at Mycenre (IIfini.T(i.-(i'). There the dado is eighty centimetres high.